The Odyssey - Homer (good e books to read txt) 📗

ocean on the rocks
Came to his ear⁠—for there huge breakers roared
And spouted fearfully, and all around
Was covered with the sea-foam. Haven here
Was none for ships, nor sheltering creek, but shores
Beetling from high, and crags and walls of rock.
Ulysses trembled both in knees and heart,
And thus to his great soul, lamenting, said:⁠—

“Now woe is me! as soon as Jove has shown
What I had little hoped to see, the land,
And I through all these waves have ploughed my way,
I find no issue from the hoary deep.
For sharp rocks border it, and all around
Roar the wild surges; slippery cliffs arise
Close to deep gulfs, and footing there is none
Where I might plant my steps and thus escape.
All effort now were fruitless to resist
The mighty billow hurrying me away
To dash me on the pointed rocks. If yet
I strive, by swimming further, to descry
Some sloping shore or harbor of the isle,
I fear the tempest, lest it hurl me back,
Heavily groaning, to the fishy deep;
Or huge sea-monster, from the multitude
Which sovereign Amphitritè feeds, be sent
Against me by some god⁠—for well I know
The power who shakes the shores is wroth with me.”

While he revolved these doubts within his mind,
A huge wave hurled him toward the rugged coast.
Then had his limbs been flayed, and all his bones
Broken at once, had not the blue-eyed maid,
Minerva, prompted him. Borne toward the rock,
He clutched it instantly with both his hands,
And panting clung till that huge wave rolled by,
And so escaped its fury. Back it came,
And smote him once again, and flung him far
Seaward. As to the claws of Polypus,
Plucked from its bed, the pebbles thickly cling,
So flakes of skin, from off his powerful hands,
Were left upon the rock. The mighty surge
O’erwhelmed him; he had perished ere his time⁠—
Hapless Ulysses!⁠—but the blue-eyed maid,
Pallas, informed his mind with forecast. Straight
Emerging from the wave that shoreward rolled,
He swam along the coast and eyed it well,
In hope of sloping beach or sheltered creek.
But when, in swimming, he had reached the mouth
Of a soft-flowing river, here appeared
The spot he wished for, smooth, without a rock,
And here was shelter from the wind. He felt
The current’s flow, and thus devoutly prayed:⁠—

“Hear me, O sovereign power, whoe’er thou art!
To thee, the long-desired, I come. I seek
Escape from Neptune’s threatenings on the sea.
The deathless gods respect the prayer of him
Who looks to them for help, a fugitive,
As I am now, when to thy stream I come,
And to thy knees, from many a hardship past.
O thou that here art ruler, I declare
Myself thy suppliant; be thou merciful.”

He spoke: the river stayed his current, checked
The billows, smoothed them to a calm, and gave
The swimmer a safe landing at his mouth.
Then dropped his knees and sinewy arms at once,
Unstrung, for faint with struggling was his heart.
His body was all swol’n; the brine gushed forth
From mouth and nostrils; all unnerved he lay,
Breathless and speechless; utter weariness
O’ermastered him. But when he breathed again,
And his flown senses had returned, he loosed
The veil that Ino gave him from his breast,
And to the salt flood cast it. A great wave
Bore it far down the stream; the goddess there
In her own hands received it. He, meanwhile,
Withdrawing from the brink, lay down among
The reeds, and kissed the harvest-bearing earth,
And thus to his great soul, lamenting, said:⁠—

“Ah me! what must I suffer more? what yet
Will happen to me? If by the river’s side
I pass the unfriendly watches of the night,
The cruel cold and dews that steep the bank
May, in this weakness, end me utterly,
For chilly blows this river-air at dawn;
But should I climb this hill, to sleep within
The shadowy wood, among thick shrubs, if cold
And weariness allow me, then I fear,
That, while the pleasant slumbers o’er me steal,
I may become the prey of savage beasts.”

Yet, as he longer pondered, this seemed best.
He rose, and sought the wood, and found it near
The water, on a height, o’erlooking far
The region round. Between two shrubs that sprang
Both from one spot he entered⁠—olive-trees,
One wild, one fruitful. The damp-blowing wind
Ne’er pierced their covert; never blazing sun
Darted his beams within, nor pelting shower
Beat through, so closely intertwined they grew.
Here entering, Ulysses heaped a bed
Of leaves with his own hands; he made it broad
And high, for thick the leaves had fallen around.
Two men and three, in that abundant store,
Might bide the winter storm, though keen the cold.
Ulysses, the great sufferer, on his couch
Looked and rejoiced, and placed himself within,
And heaped the leaves high o’er him and around,
As one who, dwelling in the distant fields,
Without a neighbor near him, hides a brand
In the dark ashes, keeping carefully
The seeds of fire alive, lest he, perforce,
To light his hearth must bring them from afar;
So did Ulysses in that pile of leaves
Bury himself, while Pallas o’er his eyes
Poured sleep, and closed his lids, that he might take,
After his painful toils, the fitting rest.

Book VI Ulysses Discovered by Nausicaä

Nausicaä, daughter of Alcinoüs, king of the Phaeacians, directed by Pallas to go to the river and wash her marriage robes⁠—Sports of her maidens after the washing is performed⁠—Ulysses awakened by the noise, relieved and clothed by Nausicaä, and bidden to follow her into the city, and there make his suit to the queen, the wife of Alcinoüs.

Thus overcome with toil and weariness,
The noble sufferer Ulysses slept,
While Pallas hastened to the realm and town
Peopled by the Phaeacians, who of yore
Abode in spacious Hypereia, near
The insolent race of Cyclops, and endured
Wrong from their mightier hands. A godlike chief,
Nausithoüs, led them, to a new abode,
And planted them in Scheria, far away
From plotting neighbors. With a wall he fenced
Their city, built them dwellings there, and reared
Fanes to the gods, and changed the plain to fields.
But he had bowed to death, and had gone down
To Hades, and Alcinoüs, whom the gods
Endowed with wisdom, governed in his stead.
Now to his palace, planning the return
Of the magnanimous Ulysses, came
The blue-eyed goddess Pallas, entering
The gorgeous chamber where a damsel slept⁠—
Nausicaä, daughter of the large-souled king
Alcinoüs, beautiful in form and face
As one of the immortals. Near her lay,
And by the portal, one on either side,
Fair as